Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise again for a few minutes to provide some comments about the important budget we brought down in the country recently.
When I last left off, I was speaking about the need for countries to make investments in learning. In fact, I argue, still argue, have always argued, that the most important investment any country can make is in learning.
I was talking about some of the changes in the budget that dealt with modest and low-income students from families of modest and low-income backgrounds, and the assistance we are providing to help them reach up and break through. We know the single greatest determinant for post-secondary learning of one form or another is whether or not a young person's parents went on past high school.
We are obviously working in lockstep with many of our provincial counterparts. For example, in the province of Ontario, my home province, the government there recently, in its wisdom, decided to cut tuition fees by 50% for families with collective incomes of $150,000 a year or less. That is a major contribution to making post-secondary education more affordable. Again, in this party and this government, we recognize that learning is paramount if we are going to succeed and continue to succeed in a global economy that is in rapid transition.
A few of the themes I want to talk about that I think are deserving of being addressed are the following. First is seniors. With an aging and rapidly aging population, our government has recognized the need to invest there as well. This is why we have increased the guaranteed income supplement, for example, up to $947 a year for single seniors. That is income tested, of course.
We are making huge and new investments in retirement, particularly when it comes to infrastructure related to seniors and seniors' housing. It is very important with an aging population. We maintained, of course, pension splitting to help so many senior couples meet the daily challenges of paying bills and staying afloat, living independently and with dignity.
We are working towards enhancing the Canada pension plan. We are working in conjunction with our provincial counterparts, again, co-operating there to try to lift more Canadians going forward to ensure that we do not deal with some of the pension challenges we are facing now in all of our ridings. All of us here have knocked on doors where we face many hundreds, if not thousands of families and individuals who are rightly worried about their retirement and whether they will be able to afford to live with that independence and the dignity I spoke about a moment ago.
We have also restored the eligibility age for the OAS, taking it rightfully, in my view, back to 65 years old from the arbitrary age of 67, a measure brought in by the last government without a single shred of evidence to substantiate the need to do so.
I want to touch upon a few issues. This is an issue that has great bearing on our national capital region. I happen to have the pleasure and the privilege of being chair of the national capital region caucus for the government, embracing some 16 electoral districts and 12 MPs.
We have invested heavily in our national museums. This is an important part of Canada's cultural identity. It is an important part of Canada's future going forward. We have, of course, invested in rail safety. I am also very proud of the work going on right now, led by our Minister of Health in backfilling our national health accord.
We are investing heavily in innovative and new clean economy measures, so that we are the most efficient economy in the world and the cleanest economy in the world.
Last, I would remind Canadians of the $120 billion over 10 years going into major infrastructure projects, projects that are determined with our local municipal partners and provinces, projects that are ready to go and will have a direct bearing on our quality of life, and of course create that growth that we have not seen in roughly a decade, leveraging money from both provinces and municipalities to enhance our lifestyle, our quality of life, and to create more jobs.